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3.6.2009

Gamasutra’s also carrying a very nice interview with Offworld favorite developer Masaya Matsuura, head of NanaOn-Sha and creator, of course, of PlayStation icon Parappa the Rapper.

The interview touches too many points to single out just one, but generally covers a lot of Matsuura’s approach to the music/rhythm game industry — a genre he played a very large part in founding, but now seemingly feels somewhat estranged from how the beast he helped birth has evolved.

Asked whether he ever intends to create a music game that, like Rock Band and its ilk, uses instrument peripherals, he stresses that his approach comes from the other end — making software to support the interface, rather than focusing on a peripheral to come at the software:

I really love real instruments — really love. The game peripheral feels like it’s very similar to an actual guitar, for example, but it’s a little different for me.

As I told you, I really want to feel as if I’m playing the actual guitar… Of course the game controller and the real guitar, there’s a very big difference between them, but if I can overcome these kinds of differences by making good software…

Maybe that is what’s interesting to me. I really want to make the experience appeal derive from playing the software. It’s a very potent thing.